The book fair was always an exciting time for a bibliophile like me. In typical, forgetful Dowdle fashion, I would never remember to bring money to the elementary school book fairs, but I remember being happy when a bookstore showed up in Northridge library. Once I hit middle school (technically, it was a junior high), I managed to remember cash.
I spent a lot of it on a lot of different books, but the one that turned into a major component of my time at Oak Canyon Junior High was the Animorphs' first book, The Invasion. On it was a very '90s (check out the haircut), very computer generated image of a kid (like me!) who was slowly turning into an iguana (a scene that wasn't, if I remember correctly, even in the book).
I believe a "buy one, get one half-off" sale was going on, and I saw the book on a display. They also had the second one. I equivocated a little, unsure of what I really ought to do. Should I buy two of a book that I wasn't sure about? I didn't know, but, in the end I dropped the cash on the first two books. Though I purchased other books that day, I can't remember them. But I do remember the Animorphs.
I read the first book in a night. They're quick reads (though I haven't bothered rereading them for the purposes of this post, mostly because that would require standing up and I don't want to do that), even for an eighth grader, but I was hooked. The premise was great--some middle school friends meet up with an alien that gives them powers to absorb the DNA of other animals, into which they can morph. They must do so because there are, a la Puppet Masters (by Robert Heinlein, which I read in college specifically because of this series), brain slugs that are invading Earth and slowly taking over the mental facilities of the leaders of the world. The dying alien gives the kids this power in the hopes that they can do something to stop this invasion.
The series stole my imagination. Sketchbooks of mine began to fill up with my versions of the many different alien species, including the Andalites, the Hork-Bajir, and the Yeerks. I would draw these aliens, write fan-fic, and insist that my mom purchase the next Animorphs book each month when my younger siblings' book orders came by. In the end, I read almost half of the 54-book series, finally losing steam when the books became, essentially, more of the same formula again and again. I did read the final book, The Beginning, and was saddened by how it ended.
One of the things that struck me, however, about the series as a whole, was how progressive it is. Yes, the "first character"* is a White boy, who becomes the de facto leader. But the beautiful blonde with blue eyes is his cousin, Rachel, not his love interest. She became one of my favorite characters, in part because she would consider things from a different perspective. Cassie is Black (and she is romantically interested in the White boy, Jake, who reciprocates), while Marco is an unspecified Latino. The last member, Tobias, was White, but has an accident early on that prevents him from resuming human shape, leaving him as a bird of prey throughout. (I didn't like Tobias' stories as much, if I remember right.)
But it isn't simply a diverse cast that makes Animorphs memorable for me. It deals with some pretty heavy issues: child abuse (Tobias' home was abusive), war, torture, friendship, differing ideals and religions (one book has the narrator notice that Cassie's (?) family has a religious ceremony before eating, but Jake's doesn't), sacrifice, isolation, humor, and exploring potential romantic relationships. All of this painted across a fairly tightly-written and -constructed world makes for some surprisingly nuanced stories.
Add to that the difficulty of generating an ensemble, team story but allowing each character to breathe, have goals, personalities, and quirks--to have friction inside of the group enough to make the stories interesting, but not so much as to ruin the formula--and it is a remarkable job that Applegate pulled off.
That isn't to say that there aren't flaws. As I mentioned, the formula got old, and though curveballs could still crop up, the overall status quo never became so upset that the kids weren't back in a similar position by the end of each book. In order to keep upping the stakes, Applegate had to devise ever more elaborate and out-there plots, including a time when they traveled back to the time of the dinosaurs. (Surprisingly, I haven't read that one, yet.) Oh, and they always spelled Spider-Man without the hyphen, and it drove me crazy.
Still, as far as a vestige of the '90s goes, we could do a lot worse than remembering this fun sci-fi series.
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* There are (eventually) six main characters. Each takes a turn narrating each book, so it's written as a first-person ensemble. This is technically difficult, and so I give kudos to K.A. Applegate and her team of ghost writers for pulling this off every single month for a number of years.
I spent a lot of it on a lot of different books, but the one that turned into a major component of my time at Oak Canyon Junior High was the Animorphs' first book, The Invasion. On it was a very '90s (check out the haircut), very computer generated image of a kid (like me!) who was slowly turning into an iguana (a scene that wasn't, if I remember correctly, even in the book).
 |
| The animal's head was part of another image that the cover, well, covered. |
I read the first book in a night. They're quick reads (though I haven't bothered rereading them for the purposes of this post, mostly because that would require standing up and I don't want to do that), even for an eighth grader, but I was hooked. The premise was great--some middle school friends meet up with an alien that gives them powers to absorb the DNA of other animals, into which they can morph. They must do so because there are, a la Puppet Masters (by Robert Heinlein, which I read in college specifically because of this series), brain slugs that are invading Earth and slowly taking over the mental facilities of the leaders of the world. The dying alien gives the kids this power in the hopes that they can do something to stop this invasion.
The series stole my imagination. Sketchbooks of mine began to fill up with my versions of the many different alien species, including the Andalites, the Hork-Bajir, and the Yeerks. I would draw these aliens, write fan-fic, and insist that my mom purchase the next Animorphs book each month when my younger siblings' book orders came by. In the end, I read almost half of the 54-book series, finally losing steam when the books became, essentially, more of the same formula again and again. I did read the final book, The Beginning, and was saddened by how it ended.
One of the things that struck me, however, about the series as a whole, was how progressive it is. Yes, the "first character"* is a White boy, who becomes the de facto leader. But the beautiful blonde with blue eyes is his cousin, Rachel, not his love interest. She became one of my favorite characters, in part because she would consider things from a different perspective. Cassie is Black (and she is romantically interested in the White boy, Jake, who reciprocates), while Marco is an unspecified Latino. The last member, Tobias, was White, but has an accident early on that prevents him from resuming human shape, leaving him as a bird of prey throughout. (I didn't like Tobias' stories as much, if I remember right.)
But it isn't simply a diverse cast that makes Animorphs memorable for me. It deals with some pretty heavy issues: child abuse (Tobias' home was abusive), war, torture, friendship, differing ideals and religions (one book has the narrator notice that Cassie's (?) family has a religious ceremony before eating, but Jake's doesn't), sacrifice, isolation, humor, and exploring potential romantic relationships. All of this painted across a fairly tightly-written and -constructed world makes for some surprisingly nuanced stories.
Add to that the difficulty of generating an ensemble, team story but allowing each character to breathe, have goals, personalities, and quirks--to have friction inside of the group enough to make the stories interesting, but not so much as to ruin the formula--and it is a remarkable job that Applegate pulled off.
That isn't to say that there aren't flaws. As I mentioned, the formula got old, and though curveballs could still crop up, the overall status quo never became so upset that the kids weren't back in a similar position by the end of each book. In order to keep upping the stakes, Applegate had to devise ever more elaborate and out-there plots, including a time when they traveled back to the time of the dinosaurs. (Surprisingly, I haven't read that one, yet.) Oh, and they always spelled Spider-Man without the hyphen, and it drove me crazy.
Still, as far as a vestige of the '90s goes, we could do a lot worse than remembering this fun sci-fi series.
---
* There are (eventually) six main characters. Each takes a turn narrating each book, so it's written as a first-person ensemble. This is technically difficult, and so I give kudos to K.A. Applegate and her team of ghost writers for pulling this off every single month for a number of years.
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